So, where can we find these profound thoughts? He wrote “The Road Ahead” in 1995. So, here’s the first chance beyond his emails and communication to his coworkers and friends that the public could read about what he was thinking. He followed up in 1999 with “Business @ the Speed of Thought. ” Of course Gates is profiled in the media quite often, but since that’s unpredictable when he’ll be quoted, there’s a few other ways to follow this very successful individual. Continue reading →

I haven’t caught on fully in terms of Tweets or Twitter, but it does seem quite interesting to see some of the most famous people including the richest man on the planet talking to me and you and you and you.

Yes, they’re talking to all of us via twitter. Not everyone’s jumped on, but these are the 10 most famous that I arbitrarily decided are tweeting today.

Korea’s incredibly proud of it’s figure skating champion which many forms of media have spelled her name “Kim Yu-Na” or “Kim Yu Na.” However, as it would be phonetically pronounced when reading the name from the west, people are calling her “Yoo-Na” which I think she’s probably gotten used to by now.

Her name in Hangul is “김연아” which if you want to be more accurate in pronouncing her name correctly, her name is pronounced “Kim Yeon-Ah” as the characters are spelled out.

However, this has been an age old problem with Korean people pronouncing words in English and for English speakers to pronounce Korean names spelled in English, but are Korean. For example, the surname “Cheh” or “Chae” is spelled “Choi” instead because the Korean characters which make up the last name actually are combined to sound like “Choi” if you separate the characteres “ㅗ” and “ㅣ” which represent the sounds “Oh” and “Ee.” Continue reading →

Saw this from Time Magazine. I guess this is the South Korean Special Army soldiers demonstrating their martial arts skills during a rehearsal for the 61st anniversary of Armed Forces Day at Gyeryong military headquarters.

A beautiful gallery of photos of the 2009 Busan (Gwangali) Fireworks festival is here on Naver.com

Sometimes the city is spelled “Pusan” with a “P” and so if you want to look up more photos, video and other details about the Busan (aka Pusan) Fireworks Festival, you may need to type in “Pusan” with a “p,” just fyi. Nevertheless, this show was one of the most AMAZING shows you’ll ever get to witness. They did it up quite well here in Busan and it seems to get better each year.

Following are some great photos taken by John Bernardi and also a link to the actual show on Youtube. It was impressive… Continue reading →

Ever since quitting smoking in 1st grade (yes, I smoked for a full week when I was 7 years old!), I’ve been an opponent of cigarettes. However, my folks run a convenience store and growing up, I’ve always seen prices of smokes up close since I handed over those “packs” to customers for a dollar plus and up. I saw this on Yahoo’s News & the images associated with the news and literally almost fell backwards in my chair. While I think this is a great thing that tobacco’s gotten very expensive, I was still a little floored at how much it now costs for a pack of cigarettes. I wonder though how much of this $10.50 is margin versus how much is actually the price going up. I realize that taxes and other tariffs account for a lot of this price, but just like gas prices, I wonder if the tobacco companies’ profits have grown in line with the prices of the products they sell.

On a side note, why is it that oil companies do make much more money when they’re gouging customers throughout the world with higher prices? I mean, while a barrel rises in price, why is it that the margins seem to increase as well for the leading oil companies in the world? It’s definitely not my parents or the many convenience store and gas station owners fault because their margins stay the same. I’ve seen it up close.

Last year, it was Korean Kiwi Danny Lee who broke Tiger Wood’s 14 year record of being the youngest golfer to win the United States Amateur Golf Championship. This year, An Byung-Hun (also spelled Byeong-Hun An) decided 18 years and one month was too old for the prestigious event which has bred professionals Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and recent PGA winner Ryan Moore (from my hometown of Puyallup). High Schooler An was 17 years when beating Clemson University Senior Ben Martin 7 to 5. Continue reading →

By the time you read this, I may be the proud owner of a Yamaha FZ6. I still own my other bike I got a number of months ago, the 1994 Suzuki Impulse, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep it. I have a few buyers who are looking at it with my Suzuki Impulse ad on craigslist.

However, I couldn’t pass up this Yamaha and think I’ll be o.k. with the finances as long as I keep building up my income. Plus, I really wanted something that will get through the winter more comfortably given that the Suzuki did have some starter issues a long time ago. At the same time, the starter issues went away after I got the rocket battery and so that’s why I’m contemplating keeping onto the bike as well. The bike is a bit nice looking, in my opinion and a classic look that almost makes me feel like it’s a better looking bike than most. If I do put some money into it and a little more TLC, I think ti may be a classic in the long run.

For now, I’ll be putting a bit of focus into my new FZ6 which wikipedia says is a 600 cc motorcycle that was introduced in 2004 as a sporting middleweight sport bike built around the 2003 YZF R6 engine. The engine is retuned for more usable midrange power. It comes with a somewhat soft suspension. It is very well suited for sport-touring, commuting, or just having fun on curvy mountain roads. So, this should be perfect for commuting to my new University job at the Korea Maritime University.

I really like this short story/journal entry by Paulo Coelho in his book “Like the Flowing River.” Coelho is the author of “The Alchemist.” It really supports the two quotes at the end of the story. I think they are two ideals people should definitely consider in life when friends seem to be “funny” and “when we make decisions while we’re angry.” (if you don’t have time to read the whole post, skip to the italics where the meat of this short story starts…)

“On a recent visit to Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, I had the chance to accompany some hunters who still use the falcon as a weapon. I don’t want to get into a discussion here about the word ‘hunt’, except to say that, in this case, Nature was simply following its course.

I had no interpreter with me, but what could have been a problem turned out to be a blessing. Unable to talk to them, I paid more attention to what they were doing. Our small party stopped, and the man with the falcon on his arm remained a little way apart from us and removed the small silver hood from the bird’s head. I don’t know why he decided to stop just there, and I had no way of asking. Continue reading →

Just in case you want to know how to find it, just search for “My Redeemer Lives – Team Hoyt.” It’s a tad religious, but just take the message to heart instead regardless of your standpoint on religion…

Thanks to my best friend’s sister Shirley, I just saw her status saying that TMZ.com reported Micheal Jackson died. I looked on ABCNews.com and it says he’s suffered from a cardiac arrest, but hasn’t confirmed he has passed. CNN reports the same and so doese the NYTimes.com. Micheal Jackson (actually spelled “Michael” Jackson, but mispelled here just fyi) passing would really rock the music industry despite his lack of success in recent years. I think he was trying to do a tour or something to make up for all his losses and lack of funds, but of course, he’s not the same as he was at his height.